Stassi Schroeder backs up Raquel Leviss’ claim that VPR producers edit the show to protect male cast members at the expense of the female stars.
On the Wednesday, August 23 episode of Stassi Schroeder‘s Straight Up With Stassi podcast, the VPR alum reacted to Raquel Leviss‘ sit-down interview with Bethenny Frankel on her Just B podcast last week.
While Stassi Schroeder had a lot of opinions about Raquel’s interview with Bethenny, she did feel the need to back up at least one of the 28-year-old’s claims about the production team behind VPR.
According to Stassi, Raquel was telling the truth about VPR producers editing things out of the show in order to protect male cast members.
If you recall, Raquel told Bethenny that Tom Sandoval got pissed at her after they filmed a post-Scandoval scene at her apartment. While filming, Raquel called out Tom for screen recording an intimate moment between them.
“When Tom and I were filming at my apartment, after filming got picked back up, I said to Tom, ‘How can I trust you? You filmed me without my consent.’ And he admitted to it,” Raquel told Bethenny.
“But then after that scene wrapped, he said, ‘Why did you say that? Why did you say that on camera? You made me look bad.’ And I was like, ‘Well, because that’s what happened,’” Raquel alleged. “He ended up boycotting filming the rest of Scandoval so that he could have editing rights to that scene, to take out that specifically.”
Stassi, who starred on VPR for eight seasons before being let go in June 2020, knows firsthand that Raquel is 100% telling the truth about producers cutting out that scene between her and Tom in order to protect the Tom Tom co-owner.
“That was a straight-up truth. I know that Rachel told [the truth] because it’s happened before. The fact that Sandoval was able to just like get away with it again was just like, fuck,” Stassi explained.
She continued: “It hurt for like women everywhere. I was just like, come on, we’re still doing this shit. That happened all the time on Pump Rules when I was there. There were so many times that I remember crying to producers and being like, ‘You guys have covered, for certain people that have done really dark things, poorly behaved men. Men that, like, I can’t even be in the same room as some of these men, and I am getting like less screen time because of it. I’m willing to get less screen time because of it. I’m willing to film less because like this is so unfair and this is so wrong.”
“But at the same time, I thought about it, and I was like, ‘Would I ever wanna go public with this sort of thing?’ And I was like, ‘no,’ because I wouldn’t wanna ruin everyone’s jobs. I wouldn’t wanna shut down a show that it’s not just the cast, it’s the crew, it’s producers, it’s, there are so many people that work on it and love it. It’s a trickle-down. It’s, it’ll trickle down to so many people that I’m like, I am tougher than this. Like, I can heal on my own. And I did. There are so many other female cast members on Vanderpump Rules who have gone through the same thing where production has covered for the dudes, and we’ve just had to heal ourselves,” Stassi elaborated.
Vanderpump Rules will return to Bravo for season 11 in 2024.
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